Protests hit Jammu on Friday morning after authorities demolished several houses in the Roopnagar area of the erstwhile state’s winter capital.
A victim of the demolition drive said that they have been living in the area for more than several decades before the Jammu Development Department came into existence. “We have been living here from before India got independence in 1947. How have we suddenly become illegal occupants,” a protesting woman whose house was demolished said.
Alleging that the Muslim residents are being selectively targeted, the angry residents said that the houses of several leaders from the ruling party are also built under the Roshni Act. If our houses are being demolished, why is BJP not demolishing the houses of its leaders, the victims asked.
Visuals from the spot in Roopnagar show slabs of houses lying on the ground and amenities scattered all over the ground at the spot of the demolition drive. “On one side the BJP claims that they are empowering the tribal communities and on the other, they are forcing us into homelessness,” another local resident said.
Neither 1500 nor any promise of PM Modi is being fulfilled, the reality is that were not even allowed to take our own belongings out of the houses when they were being demolished, a local woman said. She said that they spent a lifetime saving to build the house and now they do not know what the future holds for them.
Following the demolition drive, the angry residents hit the roads and blocked the traffic for several hours demanding action against the officials. “When the angry residents resisted the move, we were threatened. The huge presence of Police personnel who came here with bulldozers ran over everything. Around 17 houses were demolished,” a male resident said.
A local resident said that the demolition drives are discriminative and will push homelessness in the region. “It is a natural phenomenon that residential areas will expand as population grows. For the past many decades the only law that was brought into framework was Roshni Act which availed people to buy the state land from the Government, however, the law was abolished pushing people into homelessness,” Safeer Ahmed Chowdhary.
Safeer Ahmed Choudhary raising speculations against the order of evicting all the state land before January 31 said, “What does the admin need the land for, If it cannot be granted to people?”.
Many Jammu Kashmir based parties including local Hindu activists have condemned the demolition drives.
Rattan Lal Gupta, strongly condemning the J-K administration for issuing an order directing 100 per cent removal of encroachments from State land including Roshni and Kahcharai by 31st January has termed it as a ‘Draconian Order’ aimed at harassing the common people of Jammu Kashmir.
People’s Conference Chairman, Sajad Gani Lone tweeted, “Occupation of state Land in villages by inhabitants of a particular village is a generational practice and an irreversible reality. This practice is prevalent in the rest of the country. A sizeable percentage of the population is involved. U can’t make them homeless.”
Earlier, the Jammu Kashmir admin set a deadline of January 31 for the removal of “encroachments” from the State land across Jammu Kashmir with the direction to all the concerned agencies to work in a coordinated manner.
Moreover, the admin made it clear that action would be taken against the Revenue Department officials for the missing Massavis.
The admin has already directed the Revenue officials to undertake extensive anti-encroachment drives on regular basis with focus on the “high-value commercial areas” in the first instance.
The Revenue Department is already under the process of submission of time series data on periodical encroachments showing decadal growth of encroachments over 1990- 2000-2010-2020.
Several demolition drives have taken places across Jammu Kashmir which admin says is intended to retrieve the state land.
In 2021, the Jammu Kashmir admin also begun an exercise to “retrieve” the land granted under Roshni Act to beneficiaries.
The revenue department was tasked with devising a strategy for recovering large tracts of state land vested under the Act.
A total of 6,04,602 kanals (75,575 acres) of state land had been regularised and transferred to the occupants, according to a high court order. There were 5,71,210 kanals (71,401 acres) in Jammu and 33,392 kanals (4174 acres) in Kashmir.
According to the order, the full identities of influential people who have benefited from the Roshni Act, including ministers, legislators, bureaucrats, government officials, police officers, and businessmen, as well as their relatives or those holding benami for them, will be cleared off the possession.